Varanasi Estate Invites Permaculture Farms to Share Their Project Bio

Attention permaculture experts, practitioners, and farm owners! 

Have you shared your experience or project details with Varanasi Estate? 

Spread your words in front of the whole world through our growing community. 

Hurry up!!

Only Four days left of permaculture month at http://www.varanasiestate.com

For more details visit: Our Invitation Post

Permaculture Resources

Permaculture defines resources as the energy or elements in a system. The non-living components can include sun, wind, rain and minerals,  and living components such as people, animals, plants and fungi.

One way of defining the resources we use is to take the “use and result” approach, and look at the consequences when we use these naturally occurring elements.

We view “use and result” in this way;

Those which increase by modest use: Palatable shrubs and grasses which, if managed carefully with techniques such as cell grazing, will continue to increase in yield. If these resources are over or under grazed, they can become either extinct or become tough and loose palatability. Information is also considered in this way: if used well, information will increase, if unused it becomes outdated.

Those unaffected by use: a good view, climate, a pile of stones used for mulch or a heat store and climate. Any well managed ecosystem will be unaffected by its use. Those which disappear or degrade if not used: An unharvested crop, grass which could be cut for hay, swarms of bees, ripe fruit, and water runoff.

Those reduced by use: overharvested fish and game stocks, clay deposits, mature forests, coal and oil.

Those which pollute or destroy if used: residual poisons, radio actives, large areas of bitumen or concrete and sewers running pollutants to the sea.

We can see in many parts of the world where natural systems have been permanently polluted or allowed to degrade beyond the ability to recover- hence famine and war prevail.

Permaculture design seeks to apply an understanding of how natural resources regenerate, so as to repair and restore degraded systems. This is not only for the health of that system in its own right, but for the flow on effects to human culture and activity.


Published at VaranasiEstate (on February 24, 2012) 

How to Start Planning Your Own Transition Town

Transitions Towns do not just spring up over night. They require careful planning and delicate handling if they are ever going to come to fruition. Though it is a lot of hard work, particularly for just one person. Therefore, you will need many hands to help you out, which I guess if the first step to setting up your own transition town.

Rallying together a group of people as like minded and as passionate as yourself is the first step you will need to creating your own transition town. This can be done in a number of ways. You could be one of the lucky ones whose friends just so happen to share your exact point of view as you one everything and will therefore go ahead with anything that you say. But this is a very rare occurrence, so I’m going to assume you are just one person with an idea. If you want to rally people, interact with them. Pound the pavement with a petition, organise events to draw like minded people into your group. This will be an effective, and also fun, way to get people to jump on board with your plan. Another way you could do this is to raise awareness of what a transition town is and why it is that we need them. To do this, create practical and visual examples of what it is that you wish to accomplish, so that those who see it and are interested will become intrigued. For example, displays of solar panels, aquaponic tanks and even worm farms will have people questioning, and those who share your view will become intrigued and voila! You’ve started an entourage.

It is important to make sure that your Transition Town does not simply stop at a talking point. It can’t be one of those topics that comes up every get together with friends around the open fire that never actually goes anywhere. You and the people who are helping you need to remember to remain proactive, proficient and, most importantly, passionate.

It is also important to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day; your dream will not come true overnight. You must start small and set the foundations first so that you can build up from there. Setting out to accomplish the impossible will only ensure that the town will fall flat on its face and you’d have to start over again. So set the structural integrity first, make sure that enough people are involved and that you have adequate support from the appropriate organisations.

Well, that’s the simplest way to ensure a successful planning of your transition town. It is essential to make sure that you have enough people who are as enthused as you, that your passion is equal to the task and not just wasted words and that you take each step as it comes, going slow and steady so that no detail is rushed.

Published at VaranasiEstate (on February 24, 2012)